Letters to the Editor

Jan 09, 2019

Keep Mukilteo beautiful

Dear neighbors,

You might have seen me and others picking up garbage as we walk, something I do because I hope it helps keep Mukilteo and our world looking beautiful!

I’m always happy when there isn’t garbage and I do complain when there is lots and especially when folks leave their poop bags laying around, I guess hoping they will disappear magically (which they sometimes do when others pick them up).

But today, New Year’s Day, I was especially sad when I came upon a broken Corona bottle on the corner of 53rd and Harbor Pointe Blvd. and all I could think about were the poor dogs who had walked or could have walked in the glass if I had not stopped and picked it up.

I’m sure that those of you reading this don’t throw your garbage out the car windows but I’m hoping you will share this information with others in your family so they can share with their friends who might be trying to get rid of the beer cans and plastic wine bottles I find along the road to please not throw glass. Cans and plastic aren’t great but won’t injure folks or animals walking the next day.

I looked this site up, it has lots of data, and a little about Mukilteo. It appears that the data is for 2016 and 2017 only. I doubt you could make a definitive statement about Mukilteo’s crime rate from it.

A number of categories increased, some decreased. For instance: three murders in 2016 and zero in 2017. Most of us know what that’s about. That’s not something to claim crime reduction on.

I searched for other information and found this website, www.neighborhoodscout.com/wa/mukilteo/crime. I can only speak for what it said.

It appears it speaks to the real-estate business, lenders, borrowers, and investors. It lists Mukilteo as a better than other comparison at 27 percent - not so good. It cites its source as FBI statistical crime reporting and a large number of reporting agencies. This site also lists 2016 and 2017. 2018 will not be available for some time.

Chief Kang also cites some unnamed organization as awarding for being in the top 20 safest cities in Washington. Why not the top 10? Who gave that award and who did they give it to? Was it for MPD or the city? Did they cite their sources or methodology? Why were they motivated to make this award? Was it just a feel good thing to do?

It all doesn’t mean that that Mukilteo isn’t safe enough - it’s sure better than parts of Seattle or Tacoma and some others. But get off that soapbox; there are things wrong here.

All of that aside, Mukilteo should be safer than most other cities. It’s a bedroom community largely residential, doesn’t have inherently large low-income areas, and has higher than average income. It also has higher than average education.

It doesn’t have the inner city streets with types of businesses that seem to go with some crime. Its business district is strung out on the Speedway, no compression.

It doesn’t have the intersections to attract panhandlers or more that an occasional homeless issue.

Read the news, why do so many perps of crimes in other local cities list Mukilteo as home? Sanctuary city? Safe harbor? Drugs for sure a large figure in the crimes, affluency may work with it. Harbour Pointe and Japanese Gulch are the highest crime areas.

Wallace Harper

Mukilteo

Response to past waterfront Letter

I think opening up Lighthouse Park to more overnight (yes, commuter parking) during non-peak months (mid September - mid May) should be looked at. That parking lot is virtually empty during those months. I should know, I drove past it to my studio for 10 years and there were plenty of empty parking spaces for almost nine months of the year. Why not use our current assets instead of constructing new parking lots on our waterfront? Peak season parking for commuters could be moved to one of the schools up the hill. It's time to work and think smarter.

Allowing a parking lot in the last two lots of the tank farm (Tribes property), our waterfront will be paved with asphalt and concrete from Lighthouse Park to Edgewater Beach. Is that what residents really want?